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The problem with this technology is, it's being a problem to us because it can't be done yet. Of course, removing embryos consisting of bad genes may be taken out before fertilization. ^- Some people find wrong with that.

Uhh, yes? I would want to help everyone that I could and I would also make everyone happy. Is that a wrong thing to do as a god? Honestly, the argument, "Oh no, you're playing god," is antiquated and has no reasonable grounds.

How do you mean? Was my post not there when you clicked 'reply' or what?

I don't consider this to be the case at all. How smart and strong and good-looking we are is not measured against how smart and strong and good-looking everyone else is, rather it's measured in terms of how it serves our desires.

Everything else in your post makes sense, though.

Why restrict it? Do you have something against everyone being smarter and stronger and more beautiful?

I don't see how either of them are immoral. Could you explain? I mean using valid, logical arguments, of course.

There are lots of things I'd do if I was God. In fact, there wouldn't be much I wouldn't do if I was God.

Actually, form what I know about what is said in Genesis, this makes sense.

Do you feel that a parent should not prevent a genetic disease that will kill their child before he or she reaches the age of twenty?

I'm not talking about shortcomings, I'm talking about giving your a child a complete life. The fact is that if your child dies by the age of five they are not going to have a complete life. I think it should be a crime not to allow your child to live a full and complete life if you could. I would compare the ability to remove genetic diseases to the ability to use chemotherapy to remove cancer (although less harsh). They are both "unnatural" means to make the person's life longer and better.

You want to know what would happen if this became commonplace? mmkay...

Health improvements would supplement the advanced medical technology we have these days to create an incredible blast in population. Since everyone has good genes, the overpopulation would be able stretch tense to incredible levels before hitting a rebound (rebounds being the natural negatives that often follow improvements). It would quickly develope to the point where we would need to expand to more planets to sustain ourselves. Food would be scarce and people would have to choose who would live or die. This would actualy be better in todays society because powerful people could come up to descisions and root out different people. But where everyone is 'perfect', how do you choose who to let die first? As everyone is genetically perfect, the old genetic technologies wouldn't really be used anymore and their practice would be lost, probably stored in some old file cabinet. Anyway, people would get pissed and anyone who didn't get an equal share in the food would be pissed off and fight. But remember, we can't live on equal food anymore because there isn't enough. So all hell would break loose. I figure by the end of it, much technology would be gone and over half the earths population would need to be pwnt. If the technologies were to survive, the whole thing would happen again until humanity returns to standard patterns.
At least that's my guess.

Even if people did have resources, the human race would probably end up in a state of bored stagnation. There would be nothin nobody hadn't done cuz everyone would be good at doing everything.

Nice use of the slippery slope argument. If traits were picked by the people's parents, it wouldn't make all people identical. Yes, the vast majority of people would have the genes for intelligence. However, they wouldn't have the same skin color, facial features, eye colors, or any other attribute regarding beauty. Also, the presence of a gene for intelligence doesn't entirely determine a person's intelligence. Many psychologists assume that the environment accounts for about 40% of a person's intelligence which would allow for a large variation in the intelligence of mankind.

Sure, some of the population dies from genetic diseases, but not a large enough percentage of the population to make a large difference. The ability to have healthy children would not cause a population boom. The United States has a population growth of 0.91% (according to the CIA World Factbook) and the only way we grow as a nation is as a result of immigration. If the population became that much of a problem (and I seriously doubt it would because designer babies wouldn't make people suddenly decide to pop out babies) the nations of the world could choose to have a 1 child policy similar to China's. Overpopulation is not a problem.

As a matter of fact, neither would food. The United States, despite the fact that something like only 3% of our population farms, could feed the entire world. There would be no problem with either overpopulation or a lack of food.

i think were better off as stupid animals..that way we dont have to worry about some death...unless you were hunted...we have too many people living...thoses genitic diasises help kill some of them...if you pick what a person is gonna look like whats the point of having the kid...(you know this person is going to be super smart so lets say at age 16 you design your baby...if the baby hates what he/she is its the parents fault...yes people would want designer babies because people have a choice in the matter while the baby doesnt...People make choices...it doesnt matter if the choices are stupid or not...

"Go kill yourself, if it helps overpopulation. Nice logic."
Think about that for a moment. Would you be able to kill yourself if you were helping overpopulation? Probably not. For the parents that know their kids are gonna die before even being born without a genetic engineering; even I would spend thousands of dollars to do that.
"Let's all get naked and go back to live in the forests."
The possibility is that, to edit a person's ability. But if everyone did turn out to be a designer baby in the future, then only raising the standards would do the trick. Everyone still has differences. Not really a problem.
Overpopulation because of saving children with genetic diseases aren't a problem. We're not running out of oxygen anytime soon, nor the population will suddenly pop up. What horrors do these babies face? Smarter, stronger, and without genetically transferred diseases.


I hardly agree with this. Place yourself in a parent's place. Your wife had a baby, and you found out it will have Cystic Fibrosis and a fatal Faconi Anaemia disease. It will die before the age of 12. Will you perform the genetic engineering on your child or not? Or will you let your child die just like that, even if you could've saved your child? Learning to cope is swell, but one thing that haven't been matured for this parent is that it wasn't able to love the child.
This is like a idea of not treating cancer because it's a part of maturing is to cope with death even though you could save yourself?

You can't talk about whether if the child hates the idea of "designer baby" or hating him/herself. It's a natural part of life. Mostlikely though, you wouldn't be even able to notice whether or not a baby is a designer baby.

The U.S. practically is feeding the world right now with peanut butters. Yes. Starving Africans eat peanut butters for their breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

So let me summerize what Johnny is trying to say...
- Saving children from being born helps overpopulation.
- The baby will hate the parent and itself for being smarter, stronger, and without genetic diseases.
- "yes people would want designer babies because people have a choice in the matter while the baby doesnt" = "I never asked for you to birth me!"

Let me try to comprehend DTBK's unstated ideas and arguments against this technology.
- I'm gonna kill my baby.

But what if you never even get the chance to mature?

Maybe so. But that doesn't mean that those bad qualities in themselves are important/good/sacred/necessary/whatever. I mean, you might as well say that the ability to like your computer even if it has 128 megabytes of disk space and a 30 MHZ processor is an important quality. True or not, that didn't stop us from making better computers when we figured out how, did it?

Only if the health technology is accessible to people in third-world countries before birth control technology is.

Not necessarily. When it comes down to actually making the choice, it's quite possible that some parents would prefer to have a kid that wasn't that smart, just so they could retain control over it for longer. Have you ever watched I Am Sam? This is a similar idea, only a few notches higher.

Of course, after a while, yes, people on average would be much more intelligent than they are now. It just might take a few generations.

What, you mean before StarCraft? Good luck getting that argument passed on these forums.

Quite true, a lot of people here seem to have ignored that so far.

If this can get rid of transferable diseases like that, wouldn't this make it possible to get rid of STDs, once the people that actually have them are dead? Or at least make it so they are less and less..? I don't see a problem with that.

Yes. This will enable people to get rid of all kinds of genetically transferred diseases.

Id like to use a quote on this if i could:
"It is not our good qualities that make us the men we are. It is not our possessions or even actions. It is, without a doubt. Our amount of realization. The realization of our imperfections, the admittance that we are, indeed, only human, is what makes us better men. In short: A man the same as I, would be less of a man, if he could not admit his faults."

i have a question that is sort of offtopic..if we get rid of these genetic diseases..would there ba a chance they could come back if we stop altering our babies? becoming unkillable by germs...or adding gills...maybe be able to less likely to reproduce...Aeon Flux

We don't get killed by germs. We mostly get killed by bacterias, deforms, cancers, and top level mutative viruses.

I think you're taking this quote the wrong way. It's meant to say that humility, that is to say recognizing your faults, is a good thing. It does not say that deliberately retaining those faults when an alternative comes along is a good thing.

It's quite possible, although the more generations of genetically engineered babies we have, the less the chances of it happening.

more likely, completely quarentined of genetic diseases.

Sure, some might come back if we stopped genetically engineering our children and making sure that that the genes were right. However, it the genetic disorders would not become immune to any treatment because they are simply alterations of the genetic code and will produce essentially the same effect in most cases.

Even if you were genetically engineered, you still wouldn't be immune to viruses or bacterias. It would just be that you wouldn't be BORN with any diseases that were fatal or life threatening. Or the possibilities to get early cancer, alzheimer's and etc.

If you were talking to me, I was addressing genetic diseases.

However, I believe scientists think that there is some genetic "defect" that has no negative side effects and prevents AIDS from doing any damage to you. They don't know where it is though (obviously).

Yes, and I demand that you post at a slower rate this instant!

Well, possibly certain ones. But yes, most of them would still harm you. Which is why we're talking about genetic diseases specifically (that is to say, genetic defects that are not necessarily reliant on microorganisms to cause problems).

Just because I posted between you clicking 'reply' and you clicking 'submit post' doesn't mean I post fast. It just means I posted at just the wrong time.

But no, I'm not going to slow down my posting just for you. So there! *sticks tongue out*